In Billy’s Booger, William “Billy” Joyce is a reality-challenged fourth grader who enters a contest to see which kid can make the best book. He has lots of ideas, and I know you do too. I pulled together this activity guide here to exercise your (sometimes overactive) imaginations! Get creative, but please try not to drive us teachers completely insane!

1. Write Your Own Sorta Memoir: Think about an important, life-changing experience that has helped shape your own life. Write a short story describing this experience.

2. Get the Artifacts: William Joyce’s book is full of images of artifacts—comic book clippings, handwritten notes, and doodles— that represent who he was and what was special to him, at the time the memoir takes place. What artifacts represent you? Collect or draw the items that would appear in a memoir about you.

3. Book Inside a Book Inside the Book: In this memoir, Billy’s Booger is shown as a book... inside a book. Create an original storybook that might appear within Billy’s Booger, so that there is a book inside a book inside a book! See the last page of this guide for a template you can use.

4. Funny Papers: In the memoir, we learn that Billy loves to read the “funnies,” or comics. Show the events and characters in Billy’s Booger as a comic strip!

Activity GuideFrom the Office of a

Certified Teacher (really)

BILLY’S BOOGER

KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com TEACH.SimonandSchuster.com

Illustrations © 2015 by William JoyceREPRODUCIBLE

5. Tableau Guessing Game: As a class, identify the important events in this story, and write each down on a strip of paper. Fold the paper strips and place them in a hat. Then, divide into teams. Have one person from each team pick a strip of paper from the hat. In your team, create a tableau that represents the main event you picked. (A tableau is when you make a “statue” using your bodies to show a picture or event—think of it as “motionless charades.”) Take turns presenting your tableaus, and invite the other teams to guess which main event you’re depicting. When all tableaus have been revealed, set them up together in the order that they happen in the book.

6. Sell the Book: Create a sales pitch for this book. First, choose an audience: a child, a grown-up, a bookseller, a librarian, a teacher—or even the president! Then, persuade that audience member to read this book.

7. Be Mr. or Mrs. Billy: Write a letter, from the perspective of Billy’s parents, in response to one of the letters Billy’s teachers sent home about him. In your letter, talk about what kinds of even wackier things Billy does at home, and give ideas for how you’ll address his behavior at both home and at school.

8. Superhero Interview: Have your whole class create their own original superheroes. Invite each person to draw a picture of his/her superhero and label each crazy attribute. Then, divide the group into pairs. Invite each person to take turns interviewing the other, acting in the character of the superhero he/she created!

9. Storybook Mash-Up: Pick three books from your public, school, or classroom library—just like Billy chose books from his library while preparing to write his own story. Create a wacky story that involves elements from all three books. Perhaps use the setting of one book, the characters of another, and the events of the other—to mash them up into one new and different story!

10. Children’s Choice Book Awards: While Billy’s Booger didn’t win any formal prizes in the school contest, it was the most popular among Billy’s classmates. Research “children’s choice” book awards in your state. Nominate your favorite books of the year, or vote on books that have previously been selected!

11. Book Contest: Hold a similar contest to the one in Billy’s school...Invite your classmates to write their own storybooks. Then, decide who will judge the books, and what criteria will be used to determine “winners.”

A friendly teacher,

Catharine Prodromou

Guide written by Catharine Prodromou, a Second-Grade Lead Teacher at the Alta Vista School in San Francisco, CA.

KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com TEACH.SimonandSchuster.com

REPRODUCIBLE

Create Your Very Own Book!Use the storyboards below to write and illustrate your very own book

just like Billy. When you’re finished, cut along the green lines, fold along the dotted lines, and staple the pages together!

Illustrations © 2015 by William JoyceREPRODUCIBLE

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing

By William JoyceISBN: 9781442473515

BILLY’S BOOGERKIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

TEACH.SimonandSchuster.com